


Helping Hands

by sheismessy_butsheskind



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: OCD, Seriously he is a teddy bear, Wayne Wright deserves more love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 22:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheismessy_butsheskind/pseuds/sheismessy_butsheskind
Summary: Julia and Wayne had never been close, but he might be the only one who can help her.  And just his luck, they'd be getting a little too close for comfort.





	Helping Hands

It had been a couple of months since Julia had joined the band. She had been nervous at first but the more time she spent with the guys, the more she felt at home, which is more than she could say for the year it’s been without Michael. Her and Donny where basically dating at this point and they were in the middle of their get-our-asses-to-New-York-by-any-means-necessary fundraising campaign. It was the half way point in rehearsal and they decided to take a music break.

“You’ve got me playing so high in this one my face is gonna fall off,” Nick complained.

“Well that’ll teach ya next time you want to play a solo in the stratosphere,” Donny replied.

Nick just rolled his eyes. It wasn’t his fault he was so talented. He secretly did it to impress Wayne most of the time, but so what. They were his solos and he was going to play them anyway it goddam well pleased him. He opened his mouth to make a snide remark but Jimmy, wanting to absolve any tension before it even began, chimed in and said, “Well if we aren’t playing any music how about we listen to some.” And with that flipped on the radio to a swing station right as the newest chart topper was coming on.

“Oh, I love this one!” Julia mused. “Come on, let’s dance.”

In actuality, Julia had never heard this song before. But she knew exactly what Jimmy was trying to do, like always, and knew the gang needed to lighten up a little bit. She grabbed Donny’s hand before he could object and they started twirling all around the room. The rest of the boys weren’t really dancers, but Davy and Johnny swayed a little back and forth to the music while trading jokes, and Jimmy leaned against the radio while watching and clapping along. Nick and Wayne stood off to the side discussing the newest charts but Julia couldn’t help but notice the faint smiles they tried to hide behind the talk of music theory.

This is exactly what the band needed. The stress of getting to New York had been eating away at them for weeks and this is the most any of them had smiled in God knows how long. But, as always, the joy didn’t last long.

As Donny spun Julia around she took a step backwards and stepped on something that sent her crashing to the ground. The two steps that led up to their makeshift stage caught her fall, but not without her losing her grip to catch herself and landing on her wrist. Donny leaned down to try and catch her while Jimmy turned the music off. Everyone turned to face the source of the commotion.

“Ow! Ahh-”

“What happened,” Donny blurted out.

“I think I stepped on something.”

They looked over and saw two drumsticks sprawled on the floor just a few feet away.

“Johnny!” Donny hollered, “how many time I gotta tell ya to keep your sticks off the ground, she could’ve been seriously hurt.”

Jonny hurried over and picked them up, grasping them with two hands in front of his chest like a child clutching the hem of his mother’s dress when he’s scared.

“S- sorry, I forgot,” he sputtered. He didn’t mean any harm, he just tended to lose track of things on occasion.

“It’s alright Johnny, It’s not your fault.” Julia murmured with kind eyes and a soft tone. Johnny gave her a small smile before walking back to his drum kit hanging his head. Donny was still a little frantic at this point, unsure if Julia was okay. She hadn’t gotten up yet.

“Are you hurt?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I think I hurt my wrist.”

Julia was still clutching her right wrist and was hunched over as if ready to protect it if necessary at any given moment. Wayne, who had been fairly quiet up until this point put his trombone down and walked over to where she was sitting.

“Maybe I could take a look at it.” His voice was quiet yet confident.

All eyes shot to look at Wayne. He wasn’t known for enjoying physical contact, let alone offering it up himself. Before anyone could say anything he started in again,

“I received some medical training while in the Marines.”

No one’s eyes shifted. If anything, they got wider. This statement had seemed to generate more questions than answers, but Julia nodded her head and Donny stepped back to let him in. As Wayne approached he unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeves and rolled them up with the precision of a surgeon getting ready for the penultimate surgery of their career. He crouched down in front of Julia and put his hands out to take her wrist but stopped. He held them up for a few seconds before asking,

“May I touch you?”

Julia didn’t move. She had never been asked that question before. It was then that it struck her that Wayne probably never got asked this question either, and knowing how much he hated physical contact, it broke her heart to realize she hadn’t ever thought to ask it herself. She nodded again, loosening the grip she had on her wrist and allowing Wayne to gently cradled it. His hands were much warmer and softer than she expected, like they were the only part of him that hadn’t been hardened by the war. He looked down at her wrist for a few more seconds, thinking. He spoke again without looking up.

“Can someone get me some ice?”

“I’ll do it,”

Johnny chimed in and ran out the door. He felt so bad for leaving his sticks around and wanted to make himself useful in any way possible. Wayne’s light blue eyes met Julia’s and he spoke to her in a tone so soft she almost couldn't hear him.

“Okay, I’m going to slowly bend your wrist in a couple of different directions and you just tell me when it starts to hurt, alright?”

Julia had never seen this side of Wayne before; so calm and nurturing. She had been at a loss for words since he approached and once again just nodded her head.

“We’ll go to the right first.”

He was able to bend it to about half its normal range of motion before Julia spoke up.

“Okay, there.”

Wayne nodded and slowly returned it to its resting location. He then started to go left and was only able to move it half an inch before Julia vocalized some pain.

“Oo, there.”

“Alright, it’s okay,” Wayne sympathized.

Wayne made eye contact with Julia again to check in and make sure he was okay to continue. She gave him a soft nod and he began again. He pushed on her hand gently to bend it down towards him, again getting about half of its normal range before Julia nodded once again signaling that that’s as far as it could go. He moved her hand back to its regular position just as slowly as he had been as to not injure her further. He finally bent her wrist towards her and barely moved it before when Julia winced in pain.

“Ah, ah-” she inhaled sharply and her eyes began to water.

“Okay, okay, shh.”

He moved it back and put one hand on top of her wrist and held it between his own.

“We’re almost done, okay?”

Just at that moment Johnny returned with a small bag of ice and handed it off to Wayne. Wayne thanked him and put his focus back on Julia.

“Now, can you bend your fingers for me?”

He moved his top hand to allow her the space to do this. It was slow and shaky, like a horse learning to walk for the first time, but they were bending. Wayne smiled and offered some reassurance.

“That’s good. That’s a good sign. Now let me see your other hand.”

She presented it and he put each one of his index fingers in her hands, shift his weight as he went.

“Alright, can you make two fists for me? Squeeze as hard as you can. Come on, squeeze. Harder.”

Her good hand was able to apply a decent amount of pressure, Wayne was impressed. Her other hand however felt more like a newborn was squeezing it than the full grown woman sitting in front of him. He signaled her to let go and handed her the bag of ice which she graciously placed on her wrist. Wayne stood up and faced the rest of the band who had been watching silently this entire time. When he spoke his voice was much louder than it had been when addressing only Julia.

“It’s just a sprain,” he said.

Donny, grateful, but not completely convinced, gave Wayne a skeptical look.

“How can you be sure it isn’t worse than that?”

“Because, her range of motion on the left and back sides was much greater than that of the right and front sides. If it was broken she would have a much more limited range and it’d be even on all four sides.”

He said all of this with a sigh, as if he had heard this sort of question before. He had to admit, he was used to much more serious injuries in the Marines but had seen enough broken bones to know that this wasn’t one of them. He opted out of saying all this to Donny to avoid triggering him or anyone else for that matter. And as he thought about it, to avoid triggering himself as well. Donny offered his hand but quickly retracted it as he saw the slight flinch Wayne gave to avoid it. He had had enough physical contact for one day.

“Ah, well thanks a lot Wayne, I really appreciate it.”

Wayne nodded in acceptance accompanied by a crumpled sort of half smile. Donny dismissed the rest of the band for the night and went outside to hail a cab for Julia and himself to pick up some bandages and pain meds at the drug store. As everyone began to exit Julia got up and walked over to Wayne. He hadn’t moved from the spot where he had talked to Donny.

“Hey,” she said sweetly, “that was incredible. How do you know how to do that?”

Wayne turned to face her and spoke quickly, like if he recounted the memory fast enough it wouldn’t have time to trigger him.

“We lost our medic pretty early on in the tour so someone had to take over. Everyone thought I was responsible enough to keep track of the supplies, so I took it and ‘learned on the job’ as it were.”

“And you were okay with that? Didn’t all that touching bother you?”

Wayne hesitated and looked down before answering.

“… I wasn’t always like this you know.”

Julia’s heart sank. She felt terrible for asking and even more terrible for assuming. She never knew Wayne before the war. The only image of him she had was the one standing before her. She never wondered what anyone in the band was like before the war. She wasn’t sure she could handle knowing just how much the war took from them. Wayne looked back up and exchanged smiles with Julia. Before parting ways she extended her left arm and said,

“May I touch you?”

It was Wayne’s turn to go wide-eyed. He didn’t know how to answer. He had never been asked that question before. He gave her a quick nod and before he had time to regret it she had pulled him in for a gentle hug. He tensed up and didn’t move at first, but eventually dropped his shoulders and wrapped his arms around her taking care not to squeeze too hard and crush her wrist. Julia’s head rested on Wayne’s chest and she could feel the spike in his breathing relax out into a steady rhythm. She whispered one last thank you to him and they released at the same moment Donny came in to retrieve her. From that day on Julia made it a point to always ask if she could touch Wayne, and his flinching magically seemed to go away whenever they were together.

**Author's Note:**

> This one had been stuck in my head for a while. Whump tropes are my favorite so I hope y'all enjoyed it as well!


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